Majority Of Top Brands Now Have Mobile Apps

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A report being released today from mobile analytics firm Distimo finds that the majority of the top 100 brands (91%) now have a presence in at least one of the major mobile application stores, usually Apple’s iTunes. This finding is notable because just 18 months ago, only half (51%) of the top brands even had any mobile applications published.

The “top brands” in Distimo’s new report are those defined by the Interbrand 2011 Best Brands report, and include household names like Coca-Cola, BMW, Disney, GE, IBM, etc.

These brands, especially those operating in the media, business services and the automotive industries, have realized that having an app store presence helps them to promote their brand to consumers, and, for some, even to sell content. Most brands, though, are not looking to making money with their apps, but give them away for free.

What’s even more interesting is that the brands that ranked higher on Interbrand’s report actually have more presence in the various app stores in terms of the volume of applications. The more apps, the higher the ranking. That’s not to say that the apps caused the brands to rank higher, to be clear. It’s more likely a reflection of the increasing importance for the world’s largest brands to maintain an App Store presence.

Many of these brands are heavy app publishers, too – the average number of apps per brand is 24. That average, it should be noted, is due to outliers like Disney (636 apps!) and Sony (285 apps), which are very large publishers. However, even if you remove those two from the average, it’s still high at 15 applications per brand.

In terms of where to publish, Apple’s App Store is, not surprisingly, the number one pick. 86% of the top brands have a presence in Apple’s iPhone App Store, 66% are in the Apple iPad App Store, 59% have a presence in the Android Market and 26% are in BlackBerry’s App World.

Of those, Google’s Android Market is gaining the most ground as a preferred place to publish. Meanwhile, Nokia’s Ovi Store is becoming less import.